Carlo, Conte Gozzi

Carlo, Conte Gozzi, (Count) (born Dec. 13, 1720, Venice—died April 4, 1806, Venice), poet, prose writer, and dramatist, a fierce and skillful defender of the traditional Italian commedia dell’arte form against the dramatic innovations of Pietro Chiari and Carlo Goldoni. Admired in Italy and elsewhere in Europe, Gozzi’s dramas became the basis of many subsequent theatrical and musical works.

Born into a noble but poor family, the younger brother of Gasparo Gozzi (q.v.), Carlo joined the army. On his return to Venice in 1744, he wrote satires and miscellaneous prose and joined the reactionary Accademia dei Granelleschi, a group determined to preserve Italian literature from being corrupted by foreign influences. Gozzi’s own crusade was to revive the traditional commedia dell’arte (q.v.). He began by attacking Carlo Goldoni, author of many fine realistic comedies, first in a satirical poem, La tartana degli influssi (1747), and then in an exotic commedia dell’arte play, L’amore delle tre melarance (performed 1761; “The Love of the Three Oranges”), in which he personified Goldoni as a magician and Pietro Chiari as a wicked fairy.

Following the huge success of this play, Gozzi wrote nine other fiabe (fantastic plays; literally, “fairy tales”), based on puppet plays, Oriental stories, popular fables, fairy stories, and the works of such Spanish dramatists as Tirso de Molina, Pedro Calderón de la Barca, and Miguel de Cervantes. Outstanding among these fiabe are Il re cervo (performed 1762; The King Stag), Turandot (performed 1762), La donna serpente (performed 1762; “The Snake Woman”), and L’augellinbelverde (performed 1765; “The Pretty Little Green Bird”).